epcblog: November 2007

Isaiah 54

The church faces trials in every age, but not every age is the same. We are not always the most accurate assessors of our own spiritual vitality. We tend to confuse ease with goodness. The testimony of history is that the church is frequently at her best when she is facing the most trying discomforts. Whether things may seem easy or especially challenging, the promises of God remain the same in every age. Several of these precious promises were communicated to the Old Covenant people of God in Isaiah 54.

First, God promises that the church will be a fruitful mother. For the one who lives for her children, there is little that could be more disheartening than the news that you are unable to have children. Old Testament heroes like Sarah or Hannah faced this trial. But when the Lord took away their reproach, it was the beginning of a new day. The church was made to be a fruitful mother. But God’s elect Israel had become like a barren woman. Yet in words that remind us of the contest between Sarah and Hagar, God announces that the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of the one who is married. Paul quotes this verse to refer to the blessings of the New Covenant era. Somehow the one who was barren will have offspring that will possess the nations.

Second, God promises that the church will be a beloved bride. Again, there are many who are ashamed because the feel alone and unloved. They long for the right man to spread his canopy of protection and provision around them, and to know the particular love of the right man. The church will not have this fate. She will have a husband. In fact, her husband will be God, who is her Maker. We again see something of the international flavor of this promise, which forces us to see that we are talking about a promise that goes beyond the Old Covenant Community of Israel and reaches into the plan of God for Christ and His church, for this Husband is the God of all the earth, not merely the God of the Jews.

Nonetheless, Christ’s church will not be an abandonment of Israel of Old, but a fulfillment of the Lord’s promises to His people. He has in some sense hidden his face from the descendants of Jacob for a brief moment, Isaiah says, but with everlasting love the Lord will have compassion on His people. This commitment will be a reflection of God’s covenantal promises as in the day of Noah. At that time God swore that He would never again destroy the whole earth with a flood. Now He promises this steadfast love of a husband for His bride. His abiding love will be like a covenant of peace based on the Lord’s compassion.

The church will not only be a fruitful mother and a beloved wife, she will also be a glorious temple. She will be a beautiful building rich with precious gems. Her foundations, her gates, her walls will all be made with rare stones of great worth. It is clear that we are actually talking about people rather than treasuries here, for Isaiah writes of children being taught by the Lord. This is a promise of a building of living stones, and a wonderful glimpse into future days when a godly seed will grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This imagery of precious stones and a glorious building is mentioned not only in Old Testament symbols such as the gems that stood for the tribes of Israel in the breastplate of the Levitical priests, but it is also prominent in Peter’s, Paul’s, and John’s description of the New Testament Church. There we learn of the long-expected cornerstone of the final temple will be the Lord Jesus Christ. With the foundation of apostles and prophets in perfect alignment with that one cornerstone, we who believe are being built up into a holy temple of the Lord, and that temple is made of precious gems, of which you are one if you are in the Lord.

Finally, God promises that the church will be safe from all enemies. Throughout the present age we may face the wrath of the dragon and his allies, but this final promise will also have its day of perfect fulfillment. Even now we believe that no weapon that is formed against the church can ultimately prosper, since our final life is a heavenly one. Even when our enemy would seem to steal away the life of one of God’s elect, all that He is able to do is to speed such a one into the glorious presence of the Lord of saints.

All of these promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus Christ, who is our great King, our covenant Head, our solid Rock, and our Maker and Defender. These promises are for you to believe even now. The church will be a fruitful mother. The church will be a beloved bride. The church will be a glorious temple. The church will be safe from all her enemies. This is the blood-bought destiny of the servants of the Lord. Their vindication comes from the One who suffered and died to secure these important promises.

Isaiah 53

A report that seems far too good to be true… Can it be that the sinless Servant of the Lord would stand in for me and pay my debt? Can it be that His character and goodness would be counted as mine by God? This is the message of the gospel and it is the good report that comes to us from a straight-forward reading of the Bible. But who will believe this report? If it is true that this is the message of the Bible, how will this news be fulfilled that seems too good to be true? It will happen through a suffering that seems so wrong. Who could believe that God would let His Servant suffer on the cross so much in order that we would not have to suffer forever? This final song of the four Servant Songs is so clearly about Christ that, even if we did not have the many New Testament citation of this passage that confirm that point, it would be plain just from reading the chapter itself. What does this chapter reveal about the Servant of the Lord who has now come and has already accomplished His mission?

The Servant was nothing to look at, but don’t imagine that He was received with some bland neutrality. His status was less than neutral. He was despised. He was a man of sorrows. We did not esteem Him. At the height of His suffering people would have wanted to look away from Him. That moment of His deepest affliction was also the moment of His greatest service for us as weak sinners. He did something for us. He was standing in our place. We had the grief, but He carried it for us. We had the transgressions, but He took the wounds that they deserved. We had the iniquities, but He took the weight of the Lord’s crushing justice for us. We needed peace, so he took the punishment. We wandered away from God, so the Lord laid on Him our iniquity.

That last idea needs to be considered carefully. This was a plan that involved the Father and the Son. The suffering that the Servant of the Lord faced was from the Father. It was the just penalty for our sins that He bore. That penalty was not owed to the devil or to any other creature. That penalty was a debt that was owed to God – the God who had said from the beginning that justice demanded consequences for sin. The God who said from the beginning, “You will surely die,” now administered the sentence of death upon the One with whom He was singularly well-pleased. This is the love of God for you in the cross of Jesus Christ.

How would He face this terrible divine wrath that stood against us? He would face it in silence. Though He went to the cross with complete awareness of what would happen to Him and what His work would accomplish, He would accept His cross-work with the peace of a lamb about to be slaughtered who does not understand what will happen next. This silent willingness to submit to the Lord’s will came after His fervent plea to His Father for another way, if it were possible. Even in His urgent request He was still completely submissive to His Father’s will.

This all seems so unjust. He had not done one thing wrong, but He would face oppression, the corrupt judgment of men, his death, and finally the grave. Yet the Lord, who could never be the author of any injustice, was working out His sovereign and holy will. “It was the will of the LORD to crush Him.” These words are horrible even to say, but they are most surely not the end of the story for Jesus of Nazareth. Born of a woman in a very low condition, living under the Law during the time of preparation for a Jewish Messiah, undergoing the miseries of this life, He would now face the eternal justice of God, as the Lord’s wrath would come to this one focal point for the elect in His cursed death upon the cross. But beyond the grave there would be only the greatest exaltation for the God-Man whose name is above every name.

The Lord’s plan for Jesus Christ was a plan not only of great suffering, but also of great prosperity. The death that He died was powerful. We call it a substitutionary atonement. The sinless God-Man dies and elect sinners live, for the Holy Servant of the Lord intercedes, “Forgive them Lord, they do not know what they are doing.” This great act of obedience would be like a massive explosion of blessing and grace that would yield blessing upon blessing and grace upon grace as the centuries moved forward.

You may think that He had no children, but Isaiah 53 promises that He shall see His offspring, and all of us who are united to Him in faith are surely the blessed fruit of this Savior. You may think that He died way ahead of His time, but do not forget that the Lord has prolonged His days into the most wonderful eternal life, not only for Him, but for all who call upon His name. You may only see the anguish of His soul, but do you know that He will be satisfied forever with the glory that was set before Him. He has brought about the will of God. He has made many righteous.

His reward is great and we are bound to Him forever as fellow heirs. What He did was the most wonderful thing ever done. He poured out His own life to death. He faced the indignity of being numbered with transgressors, not only thieves on His right and left, but in His representation of us He stands in our place as a transgressor though He has never been and will never be a sinner. He was merely bearing the sins of many, and then interceding for the transgressors. We receive the benefits of His prayers for us with great appreciation and expectation, and we will never forget what He has done for us. More than that, God will not forget what His Son has done for Him. Suffering must give way to glory. The cross is finished. The crown is forever.

Isaiah 52

When you have faced some wrenching experience for a sustained period of time, it would not be surprising to find out that your sleep loses something of its natural sweetness. You may wake up every morning tired and weary from thinking through some disturbing thought over and over again while you were apparently sleeping. When it looks like there simply could not be any good news in the morning, it is wonderful to consider how you might feel if you were greeted at the very beginning of the day with truly wonderful news.

Today we live as participants in not only the story of coming redemption, but unfortunately also the story of oppression and trouble. There is a history of oppression for the people of God. We were oppressed by Egyptian taskmasters. We faced the assault of the Assyrian empire. Babylon and Rome have their part in that story, as do nations of every age. None of these names is anything compared to our most formidable enemies: sin, death, Satan, worldliness. But God, who is greater than any enemy, has determined that His people shall know His name, and that He will be able to say to them in their affliction, “Here am I.”

The presence of the Lord is known to us now through the promise of the great day of Zion’s future redemption. This promise is proclaimed through messengers of God’s Word who are tasked with the telling of good news. One way of summarizing that message to God’s suffering saints is this brief but important message: “Your God reigns.” Through all the oppression and trouble, through the sin and through the weakness, it is a simple but life-changing fact that God reigns. This is something that we must understand, accept, and ultimately trust. Without a sincere and settled resting upon this great truth, there is something seriously deficient in our faith.

In the camp of God’s covenant people, there should always have been watchmen who were waiting for the coming of messengers bringing this good news for the people of faith. These watchmen would have been the ones to first hear and see the blessed report. They would be the first ones awake to the presence of God with His people through the preaching of His Word. They would be the spiritual guardians of the people, appointed by the Lord of glory to know the Word of faith, and to recognize it and affirm it when it was spoken. They were to sing for joy at the sight of the return of the Lord to Zion, and at the message of encouragement that says to those who are weak with tears, “Your God reigns.”

Then the covenant people of the Lord’s nation would break forth in song. But it would not only be Jews who would rejoice at that sight of the messengers of the Lord and His King. “All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God,” says the Lord. Even now when we hear of this future day of glory, we know that it is time to depart from evil. Those who would be priests in the heavenly Zion will need to be more than ritually clean. The blood of Jesus Christ provides us with all the “clean” that we will ever need, and rids us of all our “unclean.” Through this blood our consciences are washed and we are moved toward holiness of life even now. But what a day it will be when the actual holiness of our lives will match the perfect holiness already credited to us through faith in Christ. Until that time there is something of an uneasiness with our remaining sin, but the day will come when that sin is gone in every way.

This can only come through the One Servant of the Lord. He will be exalted, though He was once marred beyond recognition. His blood shall sprinkle many nations, and the oppressive power of enemy kings will be stopped. His victory comes from the Lord our God and not from anything that men have executed, planned, or even heard about. This good news reaches us today through the powerful proclamation of Christ to the world. Awake once again even today to the best news that any ear has ever heard. Hear it, accept it, and trust it. And sleep securely and sweetly tonight when the evening comes. Our God reigns.

Isaiah 51

Abraham and Sarah had nothing. They were beyond the age of child-bearing people, and even when they were younger Sarah had never been able to have a baby. But look what God did with them! As He promised, He gave them many descendants. Even those who heard the words of Isaiah when they were first given were the descendants of these two elderly people along with millions of others who were part of the nation of Israel. Abraham and Sarah are worth considering. How did they become so fruitful? God organized the events of their lives in such a way that it was unmistakable that He alone can make the barren field yield a harvest of life, and He alone can bring true gladness and songs of rejoicing to those who have lost all hope.

That elderly couple from Mesopotamia could not have even one descendant in their own power. Consider what God did with them. But He will do much more than that. He will make one of their descendants to be a light to the peoples of the earth. He can bring hope to many who are not the physical descendants of Abraham and Sarah. In Isaiah 51, the Lord announces that He will do this, and that the far off coastlands of even distant continents are waiting for Him in the day of His power. The Word will go forth from God, and a great righteousness and a love that man has never achieved or even known will come in the person of Jesus Christ as a shining light to the world.

This world and all that it contains is passing away, but the salvation that God will bring to the ends of the earth through the message of the gospel will be eternal. But what will God’s people prefer, a salvation bought for them with the precious blood of Christ, or the fleeting pleasure of a world that the Lord can fold up in the blinking of an eye? Will we be as foolish as Israel of old and forget the blessing of eternity which we know by faith, or will we forsake everything else, see Christ as the pearl of great price, and then turn to Him for forgiveness and acceptance?

The Lord announces here in Isaiah that His salvation will be forever, but the world as we know it now will not last forever. This is a shocking message. Each of us must consider this question. Which do you want; the eternal salvation that comes through Christ, or this passing world which we cannot keep? Even the most powerful and wealthy miser in his final days must feel his mortal life slip away from him. It is time to take that fact seriously even now. Do not worry yourself with what others think of you, or what they would think if you did what you know to be wise and right, the thing that God surely wants you to do. The day will come either sooner or later when what seems hazy and distant now is very distinctly and clearly known and even visible. Those who love Christ’s eternal kingdom must prefer Him now, though we still see things by faith and not yet entirely by sight.

Though we cannot keep ourselves alive even for a moment without the love and power of God, by the strength of the Lord His redeemed will be made alive, they will be forever kept alive, and they will come to Zion with joyful singing. This will not be merely a temporary return to the earthly temple mount, as great as that was through the order of Cyrus in the sixth century before Christ. The joy that we will have in the heavenly Zion will be fuller than that and it will be forever. When God has cut up and put away our mortal adversary, that dragon of old, then we will be in a place where the very activities of sorrow, and even sighing, will simply be gone.

Christ has taken the cup of God’s wrath from our hands. The day of wrath will be far from us forever because of the Son of God. He was treated with the penalty due to the tormentors of the Lord’s family so that we might be adopted sons and daughters of the true and living God. Drunkenness with alcohol can be a deadly thing, but it is even more devastating to be drunk with our own pride and with the false delusions of our safety without an atoning sacrifice. Only He could drink the cup of the Lord’s wrath for us and live again. This He has done for us. Now we are safe and secure, though the world be folded up and thrown away, the people of the Lord’s love will be with our God forever. It will not be good for the tormenters of the church in the day of the Lord’s appearing, but because of the blood of Christ, it will be good for all who call upon the Lord’s name in truth.

Isaiah 50

It is rare for someone to honestly consider his guilt and to take responsibility for his own sin. We search for reasons that would justify our rebellion against God’s law, and our distance from the One who has drawn near to us in love. If we consider the discipline that we face from the hand of God, we must acknowledge that any trouble that we face is not because God has done something wrong. Any fault is ours. We should acknowledge that fact before God with humility. The covenant people of the Old Testament were at fault before God. They were sold for their iniquities.

When we face difficulty it is an understandable impulse to search among our own number for someone who will be able to get us out of our mess. Who do we know who can fix all our problems? In the case of Israel, God looked for one among the people who could do what was necessary, but there was no deliverer to be found. God Himself is powerful to save, as He has proven in the past. If He could dry up the sea so that the children of Israel could escape from the Egyptians, then surely there is no enemy who can stand against Him.

But what if the problem that must be solved is not a pursuing army? Our deepest problem is not from flesh and blood, but from our own guilt. What if the enemy who is justly pursuing us is our righteous God Himself? If the One who is a consuming fire of holiness is coming against His people, will God save us against God? This is the wonder of the gospel. God in His justice comes against God in His mercy. Not that the Father could ever despise the Son in whom He is well pleased, but there is One who willingly serves. His tongue brings life. His ear listens to the voice of the Lord morning by morning. He is the Lamb of God. He is God the son. He stands on the side of the covenant people, and He never turns back from His mission to love God and to face the penalty for our sin which we cannot bear.

Now is the time for all who fear the Lord to see the cross, consider the resurrection, and follow the Servant of the Lord. It is time for us to trust in God and to obey the voice of the Servant of the Lord. It is a long way from the humiliation of the cross to the exaltation of the Great Commission. The indignity of soldiers who cast lots for your garments and spiritual leaders who dare to scoff against the One who gave sight to the blind has now been completely overtaken by the Great Commission of the resurrected Davidic King. It is ours now to do everything that Christ has commanded.

He is the light of the world, and in Him we are granted the great privilege of sharing His title, so that we too are now the light of the world. The light of any other way of peace with God does not lead to peace at all, but to disaster from the fury of the Lord. Our victory is won in Christ alone. Let us have the sense to side with the risen King, the great Servant of the Lord. We were chosen for whatever suffering we may face today, just as our loving Lord was chosen to suffer for our sake. Like Him, we look to God again for strength and listen to His voice.

Isaiah 49

What does the second song teach us about the coming Servant-Messiah? This man appeals to people from the “coastlands” (which stands for far-off Gentile lands) to listen to what He has to say. He was called to His special office from the womb. His words would be like a sharp sword. The Lord would both use Him and protect Him from danger. It would appear somehow that His mission would seem to yield nothing. But the Lord has assured Him in these words that He will use Him not only to restore Jews to God, but to be a light to far-off Gentile lands, so that the Lord’s salvation would reach to the end of the earth. To save only the Jews is seen as too small a task for this great chosen Servant.

These are amazing prophecies that are fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus Christ. However, it is interesting that during His earthly days we only have a veiled appreciation for the world-wide mission of Christ and for His overwhelming victory in the final chapter of the story of life under the sun. There are many wonderful episodes in the gospels that suggest that Christ’s great mercy will go beyond the borders of Israel, but it is especially in His ascended ministry working through the church that we are able to see this most clearly. Then we see that there is something here beyond the restoration of the Jews back to the land of Israel. There is something greater that ultimately will be known in the new heavens and the new earth, but which is experienced in part even now through the worship and work of the Christian church

This should start us singing for joy right now, since these great blessings have already been secured for us in the work of Christ on our behalf. Yet there are times when Zion finds it hard to see with the eyes of faith. We think that the Lord has turned away from us and has forgotten to love us. This is of course not the case. A father or mother may discipline his child, but the Lord is like a tender mother who will never forget her son. Even if a loving mother would forget, the Lord’s love will never fail. The names of His children are carved into the palms of His hands, just as the nails made their marks in the hands of Jesus Christ. The walls of the final city of God are known to God, and they shall be built up, living stone upon living stone in the beauty of resurrection holiness.

Could such a great victory really be possible for the people of God when empires like Babylon or Rome are so strong, and when spiritual rulers in dark places wage war against the saints of the Most High? Yes, God can bring captives from out of the hands of His oppressors. The Messiah who can heal at a great distance, can also bring the gift of faith and life to many souls in distant lands. He will call them home to Himself in the great day of His gospel power. Then the revelation of the Almighty will be so clear and beautiful and all people will know that the Lord is our Savior and our Redeemer. He is the Mighty One of Jacob, and He shall do it.

Isaiah 48

Who can stand before our holy God? How quickly we will fall. It is easy to look at others and call them hypocrites, but it is harder for any of us to live up to our own professed standards. When we look at the history of Israel, while there are some fine moments, most of this heritage (which is now ours in Christ) is deeply flawed through blatant and communal sin. The story throughout the history of the church has too often been the same. We have confessed the God of Israel, but have we done it in the sincerity of true obedience?

God knows this about us and he knew this about Israel of old. His understanding of their sin influenced his revelation. Recognizing our sinful tendencies, God has concealed certain things and revealed certain things. He revealed certain things long ago so that people could not claim that their idols brought about these events. But there are new things that he has not revealed so that his people could not claim to know the hidden things of God. He knows exactly when to reveal to His people the events that they will face. They would use this information in rebellion against Him, so he reveals certain things at one time and conceals them at another.

Despite all our rebellion, the Lord remains committed to His people, ultimately for the glory of His own name. This is of first importance. It is only right that the One who is immeasurably above all of creation in His eternal nature and deity should glorify His own name. He will not give His glory to another. We must receive Him as He is. He is the one who has called us. He is the first and the last. He laid the foundation of the earth. He spread out the heavens. All the stars respond to His command.

There will ultimately be one amazingly victorious King, a King who will rule over a spiritual Kingdom by the force of God’s Holy Spirit. In this way the Lord will redeem His wayward people. By His powerful Spirit He will lead them in a new way – the way that they should go. If they had gone this way in former days – the way of obedience to His commandments – then they would have known peace and growth generation by generation. Yet even now there is a hope that God is establishing a way of life for them. Yes they will be under the power of foreigners for a time, but eventually they will go out from Babylon and they will be redeemed.

Surely there was a small taste of this redemption in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, but this taste is nothing when compared to the redemption that we are given through Christ. The God who brought His people through the wilderness, and cared for their needs day by day in the desert, has now given them every spiritual blessing and an eternal hope. There is no peace for the wicked, but God has provided a way for the wicked to be accounted righteous in His sight. This way is only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 47

God loves women. His creation of Eve as the best gift to Adam was the crowning achievement of creation, and was the difference between a “not good” in Genesis 2 and the “very good” at the end of the days of creation. We love our young daughters and the young women among our people. Where would we be without them? Yet young women are not without their own tendencies toward sin, though of course there are exceptions among them as to their common way of life, just as there are among young men. Young women are so often interested in their own outer beauty, and young men are often interested only in beautiful young women. Physical beauty is a wonderful gift, though it is fleeting. It is the rare young woman who does not fall into the trip of forgetting those things that matter the most in order to chase after attainments that so quickly pass away. The beauty that we need to seek is not merely outward beauty, but the inner beauty of a submissive heart.

This pattern of sin is not without trouble. One common consequence of searching the hardest for those things that fly away from us the fastest can be that when we seem to have our goal in hand, for that brief moment we can be so quickly proud and abusive of others. But the victory we proudly enjoy may be gone in a moment. The women who are part of a conquering power may be tender and delicate today, but what will they do when their men lose in battle. They may need to know how to do things that only their slaves did back in the former days of glory. They may be the ones moving through rivers as deported exiles when they were once carefully attending to the style of their hair.

Who has brought these changes to pass? Who takes the woman who was in a high place and brings her low? It is the Redeemer of Israel – the Holy One – the Lord God. God reveals here through Isaiah that the mistress of kingdoms, great Babylon, will one day be led along into darkness. She might then look back to former days when she led the descendants of Israel away to serve as her slaves. Back in that earlier time, God was angry with His people. Why? They had similarly been proud, foolish, and idolatrous. But God would not be angry forever, for His commitment to His own name causes His discipline of Israel to come to an end. Those who proudly abused His people will now find Him to be a most formidable enemy.

There is a day of evil that is too much for us. We must hide in the righteousness of our strong and valiant husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ours to seek the beauty of holiness and submission to the Lord today. He has an eye for beauty that is different than foolish young men who seem to seek only foolish young women. We need the Lord’s word of power, a word of forgiveness, protection, and healing. This He alone can speak because of who He is. There is no one like Him. In His light you will find the warmth of a divine fire that can be with you forever. Do not wander from Him, but follow Him with the full assurance of everlasting love from the Man who gave His blood for His holy bride, the church.

Isaiah 46

I wonder what people are counting on for peace and clarity in a world of confusion? Probably many people look to personal achievement, or the accomplishments of their children. Others hope for that special relationship that will cause all of the rough edges of existence to finally fall into place. Some are especially helped by the right kind of physical surroundings that say something to their hearts about goodness and light – a sense of arriving home at last. Others hope to feel better through impressing people with humor, intelligence, kindness, or beauty. These things are not bad in themselves, but what can one do when the old gods just don’t deliver?

This kind of religious catastrophe can happen in two ways. Occasionally we actually get what we want and then discover that we still have a familiar emptiness – even feeling strangely worse because the old goal is now gone. More often we just don’t get what we seek. It turns out that we are not all that beautiful or intelligent, or we just can’t get the kind of house that would whisper “home” to our hearts. The gods we worship seem to be absent, and we may not know how we can ever get what we feel that we need. Who will ever be able to fix us?

We should regularly meditate upon the wisdom and power of God. How do we know about these attributes of God? He has revealed them to us in His actions, and especially in His written Word. So very many times in these chapters that we have been reading, God makes the all-important and obvious point that there is none like Him. This is clear from the past, and it is clear from any spiritual meditation upon the present. It will also be the case in the future. We should look around us and think about where everything has come from. Chief on our list must be this: Where have you and I come from? Don’t we know that God made us?

Yet our hearts are stubborn until they are broken by the true God – the God of mercy and comfort. He breaks us with fatherly discipline and then He builds us up again – this time even more in the image of Christ. His Son led the way for us through death to resurrection. He tells His disciples in John 16, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” This was the way for Him, and it is the way for us as well. No matter how safe and pampered we may wish to be, in this world we will be sorrowful. But we will also find joy – sometimes now, but more often on the great Day of Resurrection for God’s servants.

Resurrection day seems too far off, but God knows the end from the beginning. With the strength that comes today from the Savior who endured the cross, we do need to keep on going. Do not miss the true God because your pockets are too full of idols. They cannot help you. They will only distract you and deaden you. Take action today to send the lifeless voiceless hopeless stumps of wood back to the fireplace for false gods. Invite Christ into your life and into your home again, and feel the peace and the power that only a risen Savior can bring.

Consider the events of redemption that we know about that lead to the cross and the resurrection. From Adam to Jesus and all the way to our lives, so much has been perfectly accomplished! God brought His righteousness so near to us, but He also brought our sin so near to His beloved Son. This was our salvation. Now the people of God have become a glorious inheritance for the Son of God. One day we will be without spot or blemish. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will flawlessly accomplish the fullness of our salvation. No other God will do. For all who would call the house of the Lord our home, we will serve the Lord.

Isaiah 45

The name Cyrus has already been mentioned by Isaiah in earlier chapters. This is an amazing detail referring to Cyrus the Great of Persia who reigned in the sixth century BC. Remember that Isaiah ministered in the eighth and seventh centuries BC, long before the birth of this Cyrus, who has such a prominent place in these chapters of prophecy and in the deliverance of many peoples including the Jews. Cyrus would defeat the Babylonians, and would eventually issue the decree authorizing the return of many Jews to their homeland authorizing the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.

This Cyrus is called here the Lord’s anointed. That is another way of saying “Messiah” or “Christ.” The anointed one is chosen by God for a special task of deliverance and salvation for the people of God. Here the title is given to a non-Jewish emperor. God is able to use a wide variety of resources for the accomplishment of His well. Cyrus is one of those resources. God leads the way for Cyrus. He brings him to power, and removes obstacles that stand in his way. It is God who is able to call such a man by name, and to do so for his people Israel, even though this man may not know God himself.

Cyrus is an amazing figure in human history, but the key for us is God, as the prophet so clearly states. God rules in all the affairs of men. We think that great men do great things through their great plans, and I suppose that they do. But have we forgotten that it is the God of Israel who is the Lord of all. There is no other. He makes Cyrus to be the man that He is. He can use such a man in all his greatness, even if that man will never acknowledge him as the only Lord. People all over the world should learn from this. The God who creates light and darkness also makes well-being and calamity. He does all these things.

Who is this God? Know that He loves righteousness, and He will bring about the fruit of righteousness as His wonderful plans unfold. Seemingly unbeatable foes can be easily defeated by Him, and the strongest nation’s plans that seem unstoppable can be brought to an end in a moment. He is in charge of the earth and the stars. He rules men and angels. He knows and brings about things that are to come. This God sets Cyrus in place at just the right time to complete His holy purposes through events that may seem most unlikely to the most educated human observers.

Though the Lord’s ways are most complex, and though His secret will cannot be guessed or fully understood by men, yet this is not because He is being entirely secretive in all of His works. He has shown to us the way of righteousness and truth in His Son. He has made the meaning of His moral law clear for all who would have a heart to follow Him. We cannot claim that every command is a matter of such profound mystery that no one could ever follow His law. The plain fact is that the man Jesus Christ, the real Messiah, was able to hear and obey the Law without ever stumbling into unbelief or disobedience.

As God is savior, He has also provided a Messiah-Savior who is far above Cyrus. Cyrus the Great performed the will of His Creator without apparently having a very complete understanding of the Lawgiver behind all of the providential events in which He was a central figure. By contrast, Jesus played His part as the Son of God as one who willingly became man in order to accomplish a mission with which he was exhaustively aware. Christ understood your sin, He knew the penalty that the Law demanded and willingly accepted the punishment for you. As His Father is God and Savior, so the Son of God is God and Savior, and was completely aware of the great things that He was accomplishing through His life and death. He was not vague about the glory of the God of heaven and earth. He understood His place as the anointed one in the plan of redemption and executed the charge committed to Him flawlessly.

It is now incumbent upon all of us to surrender before the majesty of this King, whose glory was veiled in humble flesh, and who has redeemed not only our souls, but even our bodies. We must turn to Him and be saved. Many powerful people, though mightily used by God, may entirely mistake the Lord Jesus Christ as too simple, or too poor and powerless to be seriously considered to be the King that He is. But we know better than them on this point, because we have come to know the truth that Jesus is Lord.

Isaiah 44

Do you know thirst? I thought I did as a child. I remember when my mother used to spend hot summer afternoons trying to teach my sister and me how to play tennis. We were so hot and thirsty. She promised us ice-cream sodas to keep us going and to try to encourage a more positive attitude in us. We were hot and tired, but we never really knew deep thirst as the Scripture speaks of it. Imagine thirst that might be truly life-threatening as people travel through a dry land searching for water. This is something that I have simply never known.

God is the supplier of water upon a thirsty land – not merely the physical water that we need day by day, but the spiritual water of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit of God we will be bone dry as it relates to true spirituality. Worse than dry, we will truly be dead in our trespasses and sins, without God and without hope in the world. With the Spirit of God we have a river of living water, and wherever that river flows there is fruitful and useful life. When God pours out His Spirit in the New Testament era, in the most unusual and unexpected places in the world there will be people acknowledging the Lord and owning Him as their only hope and prized possession.

The Samaritan woman at the well wanted to know where she could get the living water that Jesus described so that she would not have to keep on returning to the well in order to take care of her daily needs. Here in Isaiah we find an early announcement of the only possible source of this true spiritual water. Have you considered this truth? Only the Lord God could send the Holy Spirit. Others may claim to bring the freshness of new life through their intriguing spiritualities, but they will all leave you dry before long. Those wells of false spiritual water are shallow and unclean. Only God can send you the gift that you most need. There is only one God, and He is the giver of the Holy Spirit.

Yet the world is full of false gods. Silent idols seem to clamor for our attention. They are worthless on this point. They are nothing, and they can do nothing. They certainly cannot cause the Spirit of God to dwell within us. This is no small matter. It is from the Spirit of God that we are first effectually called to life in Christ. It is also the Spirit of God who moves us in the direction of holy living. It is the Spirit of God who effectually works in us to produce every spiritual blessing. Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love.” But this is not at all an easy thing to do. This kind of settled life of turning to the word of the Lord with a heart of obedience is something we may love with our lips, but then end up hating with our hearts and therefore our lives before the day is done. Only by the Spirit of God can a man be brought to fully love the life of obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ. Idols cannot help us here at all. They cannot send the Spirit.

The story of the idol-maker and idol-worshipper is truly ridiculous and pitiful. Isaiah describes this condition well. Do we not see anything troubling about the way that we would make an idol from a piece of wood, and then use the rest of the same wood as something for the fire upon which we cook our meal? The truth is that we should be thanking God for the food that we enjoy every day. Instead the idol-worshiper thanks a piece of wood. We can so quickly become like the block of wood that we worship. We lose all that makes us alive, and we become slaves of sin and death. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Having the spiritual riches of the fountain of all life granted to us, let us draw near with a full assurance of faith, our consciences cleansed from the water of God. Let us never flatter ourselves into thinking that our salvation was just a blind activity of a divine force or being who is not sure of what He is doing. God has redeemed us in Jesus Christ. It was an amazing prophecy for Christ to be the source of a whole new way of life. Yet He is God. More than that, His bleeding wounds still plead for the dead and bring new life. It is from those wounds of atoning blood that we have received streams of living water unto eternal life. Thank God for the down-payment of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for this token of His great love and for the whole promised blessing that will be ours as we one day receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit according to the heavenly promises of God.

Isaiah 43

In Isaiah 43 God makes a great promise to Israel. His words are full of love and commitment. The best promise that He can make to us as we go through the challenges of this age is that He will be with us. This is His commitment to Israel. Yes, they will face deep waters and flames, but the floods will not overwhelm them and the fire will not consume them. Egypt may be destroyed, and Cush may fall, but God will save His Israel. She is precious in His eyes, and the object of His great love. The church has inherited these promises as the new covenant community. We are treated as the special people of God. He will take us through suffering to victory.

The way that God speaks of helping His people here is through a marvelous work of gathering them from far-off nations. There are several levels of fulfillment in this powerful word of grace. First, after the exile to Babylon, many of God’s people would eventually be restored to the land under Ezra, Nehemiah, and others. Second, when Christ came and the Spirit was poured out upon the church, people of faith would be gathered to the Lord in an amazing way in the first century of the church and beyond. Finally, the most complete work of gathering is in the Lord’s eternal kingdom when Christ returns to bring His people home for good. Then the sons of God will be finally revealed – the people who are called by His name. He has not only created them physically, but also spiritually. They are waiting for Him. The partial fulfillment of the Lord’s promises is great, but those who hear the fullness of His Word are eager for the fullness of His power. We long for that day when we can say that all that was promised we now fully possess.

This day of gathering at the return of the Lord Jesus will not only be for blessing but for judgment. We who believe and obey the gospel are eager for that day of the Lord’s visitation, because it will mean for us the fullness of grace. But for some the Lord will be glorified in a different way, particularly for those who have persecuted the church. What a great messenger of grace is the apostle Paul, for he was a persecutor of the church who was arrested in advance by the Lord that He might not be detained on the final day. We seek that many would face some confrontation of their souls now so that they might be turned from being enemies of Christ and His church to being servants of the gospel and the Kingdom.

Our God is the real God. It is certainly wise to surrender to Him now while there is yet time. He has made a way for us through the sea, a way through the wilderness, a way home. Jesus is that way, and heaven is our desired destination. He can save us now from the wrath of our enemies. He is our creator and our defender. No army can stop Him when He has determined to bless or when He has determined to judge. One man standing against a might horse and a rider in a chariot can be utterly frightened at the power of a fierce animal before him. But no horse is mighty before the Lord. No weapon of men is overwhelming to God.

If God chooses to bless, if He determines to do a new thing – a thing of life and not death, He will not be stopped in His purpose of grace. We live because of His purpose of grace expressed so perfectly in the atonement. God’s justice for us has been satisfied through the death of His Son, and there is no obstacle against us that will keep us from the fullness of His blessing. This is the new thing that He has done for those who deserved nothing from Him but hell. This is particularly remarkable since some Gentiles will be shown mercy and some Jews have been cut off from the Lord’s Kingdom. Today thousands of Jews and Gentiles make a wretched choice, but millions are safe in the Kingdom of Christ as those who have been chosen by God.

Isaiah 42

It is one thing to be told that you are loved by a corporation, a social movement, or even by a kingdom. It is quite another to learn that a king knows you and loves you, and is prepared to suffer personally for your well-being. Do you consider your involvement in the community of faith to be a matter of somewhat impersonal belonging to a good organization? Perhaps you would object to the coldness of that concept, and would insist that you have many precious friends in the Christian church. That is, of course, a very wonderful thing, but it does not go far enough. You need to know that the King of the church became a suffering servant of God in order to save you.

In chapter 42 we are given a personal word about a servant, a word that is fulfilled in the gift of Christ, the King who knows you and loves you. This servant is the chosen one of God, full of the Holy Spirit. He has a heart for the very weakest, but He himself is powerful enough to bring about justice throughout the earth. This great Messiah has been given as the fulfillment of all of God’s promises, and He has become a light to the nations. He literally did open up the eyes of several people who were blind, but He has given spiritual sight to millions. We were stuck in the prison house of sin and guilt, and through His death the chains that were rightly on us have been broken. We are told here who this Messiah King is. He is the Lord of Israel, the very One who has revealed Himself to be the God of power and glory. This God who knows things from long ago, and who can bring about the future with His simple declaration, He will come to us and rescue us personally. Yet how can the One who is the Lord Himself also be the Servant of the Lord? Here we have the Father and the Son, and with the Spirit of God upon Him, we have the Trinity.

But will His coming be good for those who would still cling to worthless idols? What if a great King has committed Himself in love for you, even to the point of giving His life for you, and yet you continue to prefer a lifeless image to the King who saves in person? This would be a great insult, and would not be fitting for someone who has been loved so very well by the best and most powerful friend of the church. He will not be content to leave us in such foolishness. He will grant us new eyes to see His greatness and a new will to turn away from false suitors who cannot compare to Him.

Israel was to be a servant to the Lord as a whole nation. Yet she became blind like the idols that she worshipped. She was deaf to the words of the prophets. God brought His law clearly to her, but she would not follow it. She ended up in a desperate condition, and yet she was still unwilling to repent. God was the one who gave up His people to plunderers and looters. He poured on the heat of His anger until the fire was all around them. The invading armies of foreign nations were poised to kill. Yet Israel would not understand. She would not take it to heart, and receive His holy love.

Isaiah 41

Even the simplest events in any man’s life are the result of a complex chain of causation. I recently had a meeting with a friend to discuss facilities issues. Why did we have that meeting? I know this person to be a reliable advisor on these issues and we need some outside advice. Why do I know this person in this way? I met this person as part of a civic organization and have seen his excellence in a variety of real estate matters? Why was I in that civic organization?... We can trace these matters batter for along time. Do we ever come back to a root cause? Yes, the uncaused cause of all things is God. This is true of all things in our lives, though we rarely take the time to meditate upon God’s works that have led us to this very moment.

Here in Isaiah 41, God indicates that He is the one who is the root cause behind all of the power struggles of international events in the Near East of the eighth century before Christ. Is there a powerful king coming with an army from the east? Does he seem unstoppable? God is behind this situation at root. He takes no pleasure in disaster, and He is not the author of sin, but He works all things according to the perfect counsel of His most holy will. We should not contend with Him. He is the Lord.

God’s plan for His nation Israel was not an insignificant part of His overall design for the glory of His name and the redemption of the elect. Especially, it is from Israel that the One special Servant of the Lord would come as the only Redeemer of God’s people. God called Israel into being for a purpose. He has never abandoned His purpose for His chosen ones. He is with them. He will help them, by His right hand – that is by the man of His right hand, the special seed of resurrection victory, the Lord Jesus Christ.

God knows what is necessary in order to show His favor to people who will be objects of His mercy. He understands that there are strong enemies who would destroy them, and would overturn the plan of God if that were within their power. He is able to defeat all such enemies, seen and unseen, and to take even the weakness of His people to show forth His great strength. When He does things for us that are obviously beyond our power, it would be the height of ingratitude to then claim the victory for our own wisdom or strength. We who have a heavenly victory should especially consider how miraculous that gift is, and then we should rejoice in the Lord. Like streams of water springing up in the bone-dry dessert, our victory comes from the God who alone can save us from certain destruction.

How are we to think about the Assyrians or any other hostile power? Surely their threat is very real and frightening to us. But we need to consider all the facts. Do the Assyrians know the future? Can they declare things and by the power of inherent existence bring them about? Where did they come from anyway? If we worked back from the frightening events of anything that they might pretend to do by their idols, will we not always come back to the God of providence? He stirred up one group from the north and another from the east. Have nations been defeated along the way? Work back from that event and come to the root cause. We will always come back to God.

This God, who would one day send the Babylonians for His purposes of discipline, would also eventually send a herald of good news for His people. He would send more than a herald, since the man Christ Jesus, having performed signs of divinity, and having achieved all righteousness, would display His supreme power in redemptive love. This great Wisdom of God would one day again sit at the right hand of His Father, and send forth the divine counselor for the church, His Holy Spirit. This Spirit would work faith through the Word of God whenever and wherever He would be pleased to do so.

Isaiah 40

God commands that His servants will speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and that the good news be spoken to her of the end of her warfare and the end of the Lord’s dealing with her sins. Yet Jerusalem would face great difficulties over the decades to come after Isaiah. When would the good news come for the people of God? It would first be announced by a special prophet who would be a voice crying out, telling the people of God to prepare the way of the Lord. What does this mean? The Lord Himself and therefore the glory of the Lord would be revealed, but before that great day, a special prophet, who we now know to be John the Baptist, will prepare the way for our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord is so amazing! How could He actually come and speak to man face to face? He is the eternal and everlasting God. We live in the world of the perishing. Like the grass of the field even we ourselves come and then we are gone even in the blinking of an eye. How can God visit us here in this place of the temporary? The word stands forever, and it will be the Word who will come and speak to us. The voice of the Lord can break the cedars of Lebanon, and that voice will come as a servant of the Lord, a servant who is to be announced by this voice crying in the wilderness. The voice of God will come in the flesh, and He will shepherd His flock as a mighty protector. He knows the wonders of creation, for He was the voice of God over the tumultuous waters. He does not consider the great nations of the world as weighty. They are all part of the emptiness of this passing world, but He is forever, and He has won for us a new creation that will never fade away.

What will this voice of God be like when He comes? He is nothing like the idols of men, which can do nothing. Have you not heard of the God who is the great transcendent one, that He is also imminent in His love for His people? He made all things visible and invisible. The most impressive rulers do not make God afraid. He can bring any person to nothing, and He can also raise up the poorest slave to make Him sit with princes. He will correct us, but with any necessary correction, He commands of those who would speak for Him that He would be presented to His people as the God of all comfort. This despite the fact that our days here are numbered, yet we need not be filled with resentment or envy. We can rest in the fact that the Sovereign God reigns. He knows the stars by name, and He has not forgotten you.

Why would we want to hide our ways from Him? He has sent His son to be the atoning sacrifice for us, and we would do well to approach Him with all personal honesty, but yet we think we can hide in our sin. This is what the people of Israel thought, and still in the church today we wonder if God really has an exhaustive knowledge of all things, including our immoral plans, thoughts, and actions. At other times we dream that we deserve better treatment from Him, and we wonder why He will not be near to us. But the Jesus who was exhausted in service, and who humbled Himself to a point of the lowest weakness, is more than able to give strength to the most weary saint who seeks Him from the depth of her heart.

Isaiah 39

The Babylonians were interested in the life and death of the King in Judah. They sent friendly letters and a special gift to Hezekiah with envoys from the king of Babylon. Hezekiah’s response was most cordial. He welcomed them gladly, and showed them everything about Jerusalem that might make it attractive to the invading force of a foreign power. After the visitors have departed, Isaiah tells Hezekiah that it will be this Babylon which will carry off everything to their land, even some of the king’s own descendants.

What are we to think about the day of destruction of Jerusalem? We are of two minds at the same time. On one hand, we mourn the barbaric destruction by fierce Gentiles of the Lord’s own holy things. We also consider the tremendous loss of life and civil freedom that would be coming to God’s nation. So many people would die! So many would suffer and then live on as slaves in a foreign land. We can only grieve about these things. On the other hand, we too know that this has been a long time in coming, and that the vindication of the righteousness of God requires that his sentence against his disobedient nation must actually take place. But even more than this, we must know that the way of approaching God through ceremonies designed for only one nation and people would eventually have to end, giving way to a New Testament life built on the blood of the one Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Now eternity has been opened to all the nations of the world. In order for this great new way to come, something old had to finally pass away, which had been prophesied long ago.

The plan of God for the salvation of the nations is older than Adam. It was stated very clearly through Abraham, for this man of faith was to somehow be a source of blessing to all the peoples of the earth. This would happen through His descendant, Jesus Christ. Those who would insist that nothing had changed in terms of Jewish law for the faith and life of the church were soundly corrected by the first church council in Acts 15. Paul, Peter, and James were all able to see how these developments were a part of the great plan of God and that they had been amply testified to in the Hebrew Scriptures.

There is something for us to see here. The fact that there will be peace and security in any day is a blessing that should not be quickly dismissed. We should be grateful for a delay in the judgment of God, knowing that He is not rejoicing today in the death of the wicked, and that in some sense that He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should find life in Christ. A day of peace for the proclamation of the word of God’s peace is a great gift for us in any era. May we take what we have been given with grateful hearts.

Above all the mysteries of things that have been revealed and things that remain in the secret counsels of our Almighty Father, we can trust the One who has spoken through the prophets. He is working out His holy will. The coming of the New Testament age required the closing of the older way of doing many things. The new way was a very significant step in bringing us that much closer to the completion of the Lord’s good purposes for all that He has made. We are to long for that day, to wait for that day, and to watch for that day. Together with the saints in every age we say, “Come soon, Lord Jesus!

Isaiah 38

As he did with the Assyrian challenge, Hezekiah again turned to God, and brought his plea for deliverance from this trouble. He made His own faithfulness his plea before the Lord, a line of argument that we might tend to avoid. Many of the Lord’s most faithful servants have been puzzled by their personal afflictions. They wonder whether God has forgotten their missionary service or sacrificial giving. It is not unusual for people to remind the Lord that they have sincerely been trying to serve Him. Hezekiah also does one more thing. He weeps bitterly.

The value of bodily life is not something to scoff about, and our bodies are gifts to be respected and not harmed. With the apostle Paul we recognize that it is better for us to leave our bodies behind for a time, and to go to be with the Lord. But Paul adds that he is persuaded that he will remain yet for some time, because he knows that this will be for the good of those who can benefit from his earthly ministry. Perhaps Hezekiah has a sense of the good gift of bodily life, and of the benefit that he can bring both to God and to his subjects while he is alive.

We know that the life of the Lord Jesus Christ was cut off, in some sense, before His time. He was only in His early thirties, yet He had apparently accomplished all that He needed to do here. It might seem to us that it would have been much better for Him, like Paul, to remain for our sake for many more years. But Jesus insisted that in His case it was better for us that He go to the right hand of the Father. From that place of power He would grant spiritual blessing for the church which would be of great benefit to the building of the Kingdom of God. Whether we go to our heavenly home at an early age and leave our body behind in the grave awaiting the resurrection of the dead, or if we live on for many years with the use of our senses and our mortal strength for the purposes of God is surely God’s to answer. We may have a desire one way or another. Hezekiah deeply wanted to remain for several more years in his mortal body.

To this request God was pleased to give an answer that Hezekiah liked. He would live on in the body here. He was given another fifteen years, and God confirmed this gift of extra time with a miraculous sign. The response of the king in the form of a writing of Hezekiah is recorded in the Bible for us. Here we see more of the King’s concern for bodily life on earth. It is with the body that men actually see. Yes, the spirit is eternal, but the body is somehow the right house for the spirit. Yet these bodies we have now are not yet eternal. We are made to be a great combination of body and spirit, and something is not finally right when we are spirits who have been separated from our bodies. With the use of our bodily senses we thank God and praise God. With our physical hands and the mystery of mind, eye, ear, and limb we make music on stringed instruments in the worship of God.

To diminish the importance of the body is to deny a significant aspect of the work of Christ. He became man, a man with a true human body. He died in a mortal body, and He rose again with an immortal body. We thank Him for the gifts that we have in the physical bodies that He has given us now. May we treat them with respect, and may He be pleased to give us useful bodily and spiritual lives on this earth for many years to come. At just the right time we will lay our bodies down and commit our spirits into the Lord’s hands. Again, at just the right time, when the Lord returns, our spirits will once again be reunited to our now immortal bodies, and we will live and reign with the Lord forever and ever. We do not know exactly what that will be like. But we do know this: We shall be like Him.

Isaiah 37

Hezekiah had received dreadful news. There was no way to try to dive out of the way of the oncoming Assyrian foe. An official representative had delivered an insulting and blasphemous message within the hearing of the people. When the news of this came to the king of Judah, he did what people did in that day when they wanted to humble themselves under God’s almighty hand. He tore his clothes, put on garments of mourning, and went to the house of God to bring His strong petition for divine relief.

Where do you go when you face a problem that is beyond you? You know the right answer, but where do you really go? What if you have turned to God before at a point of desperation and have found that the events that transpired seemed to be a direct rejection of your tears and your begging words? Is there any point in coming to God again at the next desperate moment? Consider two things: 1) The Lord may have answered your earlier petition in a bigger way than you can now see. It is only three days from the cross to the empty tomb. Don’t give up now. Don’t forget about heaven, where so many of the prayers of the people of God have been answered bountifully. These things are stored up for you there and are merely waiting for your arrival at just the right time. 2) Where else will you go today in your need if you do not come to God again in faith. He has the words of life, and has sent His Son for us. Trust Him again, knowing that what may look like the failure of the cross will actually be the blood that cleanses and brings life.

Hezekiah came to God. He prayed His heart out. He acknowledged the terrible day to be a day of rebuke. He sent word to Isaiah the prophet, and asked for Isaiah to come to God in this difficult day and to pray for the remaining people in Jerusalem. He also reminded Isaiah that the Rabshakeh may have gone too far with his words, since they would have to be deeply offensive to God. He counted on the fact that such an assault against the name of God could not be overlooked, and hoped in God’s defense of His own divine glory.

The King of Assyria, as God had promised, had to make a hasty retreat, but before He did, He sent another blasphemous and threatening message to Hezekiah. It must have seemed like the prayers of the king and the words of the prophet had failed. Hezekiah again deeply humbled himself before God. He put the matter before the Lord, and he prayed again. He exalted God in the face of the vile insults of the Assyrian ruler. He acknowledged the depth of His military problem, but He insisted that God was not some idol like the gods of the nations whom the Assyrians had defeated. He called out for God’s salvation.

Word again came again from Isaiah. Now God had something to say to the Assyrians that He wanted Hezekiah to hear. These mockers of God were despised by Him, and they would deal now with the power who establishes every throne known to man. Assyria had power because the God of Israel had established it long ago. Man may have force for a moment, but he cannot do anything prior to his birth, and his death is swiftly approaching. God knows all about the enemies of His people, and He has heard their raging against Him. Therefore they will be dragged home before they cause any more trouble. The people of Judah will yet have years of peace, and God will bring an elect remnant out of Judah, and no Sennacherib will be able to stop Him.

What a turnaround! Yet it pales in comparison to the mob of the powerful and the unruly who shouted hundreds of years later, “Crucify Him!” They thought that Jesus was defeated and shamed and destroyed never to say another word to anyone again. Yet in that death it was an evil commander of a demonic legion of rebellious angels who would be publicly humiliated, for the Son of God was atoning for our sins, and He would soon rise from the grave in the greatest vindication known to man. His loud cries and tears were heard from Gethsemane and Calvary. His Jerusalem was saved from the threatening foe, and the door to that great city was opened for millions as a way into the sanctuary of God had been made through the torn curtain of His own body. Now He lives and reigns. Have confidence in Him. Do not fall for the boasts of a powerful Sennacherib. Stand in the strength of our Savior once again this day.

Isaiah 36

For this chapter and the three that follow it we are treated to an excellent historical interlude from the reign of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was good king in Judah in the days when both Israel and Judah were threatened by the power of the Assyrian empire. Israel fell to this foe from the east, and much of Judah also suffered from Assyrian domination, but Hezekiah and Jerusalem were spared the final indignity of the destruction of the city where David and his descendants reigned, which would instead fall by the hand of the Babylonians more than a century later.

Sennacherib was the king of Assyria in Hezekiah’s day, and he sent a high official to bring a message from the head of the empire to Hezekiah and to the people of Jerusalem. This was after the other fortified cities of Judah had been captured. This high official, called here the Rabshakeh, came to Jerusalem with a large army. He came to a public place where the officials of Judah and the populace as a whole could hear his message, and he spoke in the language of the common man, with the hope of inspiring fear in the hearts of the populace so that Hezekiah would be left alone without the aid and support of the remaining people of Judah.

Let’s look at the true part first. Sennacherib was a powerful man as the king of Assyria, and mere words will not save people from the kind of military danger they faced at that time. Also, the people of Judah did have a tendency to place their trust in foreign alliances, and as God Himself had told them through Isaiah, Egypt would not be able to save them from the Assyrians. Also, Hezekiah had removed some places of worship where the people had turned for help in the past. Judah was vastly outnumbered by the Assyrians. Furthermore, the Lord God was involved in directing foreign powers to come up against His own people. Also, as the Rabshakeh insisted, it was not just the leaders who were in danger from the Assyrians, but a fight against Sennacherib and a siege against Jerusalem would very likely mean starvation and disease for the people who would try to survive that assault from within the city. Finally the other nations, including Israel and Samaria, had found resistance to the Assyrians futile, and their local gods that they worshiped had not been able to deliver them from the Assyrians, who did have plans to resettle the remaining people of Judah in other places. All of this was true.

What then was untrue? The Rabshakeh suggests that to trust in the Lord would not work for the people of Judah. This is a wicked falsehood. He tries to suggest that the Lord was in the same category as the idols of the nations, again a horrible deception. Not all approaches to supposed gods need to be seen as equal. The gods of the nations are idols and demons. The Lord Jehovah made the heavens and the earth. He accomplishes His will and will not be stopped. Yes Hezekiah had removed certain places of worship, but these were places of false worship, not places where God had authorized true worship. While God had used the Assyrians and others to discipline His people, it was not God’s unchangeable will to see Jerusalem destroyed at that time. Humility before God and an earnest plea to Him in faith would not be wasted breath. God would actually hear the plea of His servant, as we will see in the chapters that follow.

When we think of the King over the church today, we know that He also faced the challenge of half-truths and lies as Satan attempted to move Jesus in the direction of fear and sin. That serpent of old even used the words of the Bible to try to confuse God’s faithful servant. How did Jesus respond? He recognized half-truths and the lying use of even the Scriptures as subtle attacks that needed to be resisted. He fought back with the true use of the Word. He would not yield Himself to the unclean adversary for even a moment. Instead He was utterly committed to the One whom devils rebelled against long ago when they fell from their lofty heights.

Our Lord reigns as the King Supreme over the heavenly Jerusalem. He has accomplished His victory over sin and death for us by taking upon Himself the penalty for all that is unclean and unrighteous in us. We must not shrink in fear as followers of Jesus the King today. We need not answer the proud boasts of this wicked adversary. The Lord will rebuke Him. The King will give Satan His final answer one day by casting this fallen angel into a lake of fire. Our delight is that we are on the side of such a righteous and powerful Ruler who with His own body and blood on the cross has satisfied divine justice and accomplished divine love.

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Isaiah 54

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Isaiah 53

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Isaiah 52

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Isaiah 51

Monday, November 26, 2007

Isaiah 50

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Isaiah 49

Monday, November 19, 2007

Isaiah 48

Friday, November 16, 2007

Isaiah 47

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Isaiah 46

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Isaiah 45

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Isaiah 44

Monday, November 12, 2007

Isaiah 43

Friday, November 09, 2007

Isaiah 42

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Isaiah 41

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Isaiah 40

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Isaiah 39

Monday, November 05, 2007

Isaiah 38

Friday, November 02, 2007

Isaiah 37

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Isaiah 36

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